Greece Treasury bills auction was met with nearly three time more bids

By IBT Staff Reporter On 07/13/10 AT 7:36 AM

Greece today sold 1.625 billion euro of 26-week Treasury bills due January 14 with 4.65% yield, a rate below the 5.0% it's charged by the European Union for its bailout package easing the fears over the nation's inability to allocate finance from capital markets.

The Public Debt Management Agency in Athens said in a statement today that investors placed 3.64 times more bids for the bills offered. The successful auction from Greece eases the woes over the ability of the nation to meet its obligations and tame its deficit at a less than expected punitive cost of borrowing.

Greece has to have alternative fund raising windows to secure its avoidance of default. According to the IMF document, nearly 4.5 billion euros of short term securities are due between July 10 till July 23 and the rollover is not fully funded by the provided bailout and accordingly the news today came to support the market rally and offset the news of Portugal's credit rating downgrade.